About

Part ONE: (original version below)

I let go of everything I had built my life around (job, home, community, identity) because I wanted to learn. I didn’t know what I wanted to learn, but I had stagnated. I had been teaching at a high school in Colombia (which is not your standard life…) but I had been doing the same thing for too long and needed a change. So I quit. I opened up space in my life for something else without having a clear destination or direction.

And life HAPPENED.

Part TWO:

*Note: See The Plan for an update on how life intervenes and alters even the most romantic and ambitious plans.

After 35 years of living, working, traveling and learning, it occurs to me that I don’t know enough about the most essential thing in life: Food.

So quitting my job and leaving my home, I am setting out to learn more about GROWING food, COOKING food & EATING food: pretty much anything related to FOOD. I will learn many more things that I can’t even anticipate at this moment.

Looking particularly at the food cultures of Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and Italy to start. I will learn about planting, cultivating, cooking and eating. It is my intention to immerse myself in local communities to learn traditional methods that are being forgotten to make way for “improvements” and efficiency of the modern “Feed 7 Billion” globalized food market.

In the modern age of convenience and possibility we have grown up and grown accustomed to being increasingly removed from our food and our food systems. Families flourish within a healthy food culture with fresh ingredients, cooked from scratch. I want to part of families like that.

“The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they nourish themselves.” —Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The journey begins in my home country of Colombia. While being born an American, I have been living and teaching in Colombia for over 5 years. For the next 3 months I will be visiting grandmothers, farmers, kitchens and various regions of this remarkable country to study agricultural practices and explore the local cuisines that are inspired by regional climate, crops and culture. I will work with farmers to learn about the land, the plants that nourish us and the communities sustained by the art and trade of cultivation.